All Recommendations
Hoop Dreams
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
Microcosmos
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Flowers and Trees
A jealous stump threatens two trees that are in love by starting a forest fire. When the rain comes and puts out the fire the forest revives and celebrates the wedding.
Cat Soup
The surreal black comedy follows Nyatta, an anthropomorphic kitten, on his travel to the land of the dead and back in an effort to save his sister's soul.
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.
Until the End of the World
In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.
Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics
Celebrities recall their most mind-bending trips via animations, reenactments and more in this comedic documentary exploring the story of psychedelics.
Paradise Lost 2: Revelations
Revisiting the 1994 Arkansas murder of three 8-year-old boys and the three teenagers convicted of the crime. A follow up to Paradise Lost, Revelations features new interviews with the convicted men, as well as with the original judge and police investigators.
Love Me
Love Me follows Western men and Ukrainian women as they embark on an unpredictable and riveting journey in search of love through the modern "mail-order bride" industry.
Submission
A well-respected professor who is a celebrated novelist and loving husband loses himself when he becomes obsessed with an ambitious and talented student.
Penguin Post Office
In the heart of the Antarctic Peninsula there's a unique British post office staffed by a dedicated team and surrounded by jaw-dropping scenery that includes 3,000 gentoo penguins. Every summer, this particular colony of penguins returns from an intensive spell of deep sea fishing to its breeding grounds alongside the post office, trekking nearly two miles across sea ice and snow to get there when the weather is especially bad. They rush to find a partner, build a nest, lay eggs and protect those eggs from predators, and then finally get down to the task of raising their young. We see their four-month drama unfold against the backdrop of their lives - primarily, the comings and goings of cruise ships, bringing enthusiastic tourists to photograph the penguins and their chicks, and to buy postcards to send to friends and family around the world - from the Penguin Post Office.
David Foster: Off the Record
A documentary about Canadian music icon David Foster.
Paris Is Burning
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
The Interpreter
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
Heavenly Creatures
Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.
The Rum Diary
Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s 'The Lost Generation', Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman and her fiancée, a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.
The Family Stone
An uptight, conservative businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.
Unthinkable
The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes are.
Harriet
The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
Citizenfour
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.